A Really White Easter

Boy, did it ever snow last night! 10-20 cm of fresh, powdered snow fell yesterday and it continued snowing throughout the day.

I got out the shovel and shoveled my way up to the car, only to discover that the snow plow had not been through yet. I decided I was not slithering down to the village in this deep snow just for rolls, so we had some of the sickly sweet Swedish bread I bought yesterday for breakfast.

There was an article in the paper about the sugar in the bread - seems in the first World War the Swedish sugar beet producers needed a market, so they passed a law that there had to be sugar in bread! During the second World War they upped the sugar quota in bread so people would get enough calories. Sweden didn't have much, but sugar they had. So the Swedes are addicted to sweetened bread, although some pesky immigrants have been baking non-sweetened bread for some time now. It just doesn't make its way to the little country store here.

WiseKid was bugging us to go to the large discount shop so he could check out the paintball guns (although I remind him regularly that he has to be 18 for that pasttime). We piled into the car, I packed a shovel which rather scared my mother-in-law, so she decided to stay home. We crawled to the store, not even the type of road two grades up from what we have by the house had been cleared. We formulated the theory that they had already packed in the tractors and all the drivers were on Easter vacation on the Canary Islands.

We made it without incident, and discovered that the discount store had changed hands. It is now open 9-20 even on weekends, but has much less hardware, fishing and gardening stuff. And no guns (yeah!). Their food selection, however, was stupendous. They even had a large shelf with American foods. I slipped a box of MacCheese, some root beer and a diet Mountain Dew into the cart.

Back home, the streets had still not been cleared. We had lunch, WiseKid copped the box of MacCheese and I was only able to beg a small plate of the stuff. Just love the chemistry of this, don't know what they put in it, but this is the Real Thing! I got a paper started that is due very soon, and since the streets had STILL not been cleared, I got my boots on and went out to clear the parking lot for my sister-in-law. Our "other parking space" currently has 30 cm or so of snow on it, and it would block the snow plow, if it ever shows up. But there is guest parking down the street, so I did my good deed for the day and cleared two spaces.

The guy in charge of the homeowner's association came by walking his dog, and I complained that the plow - which we pay for, because this is a private road - had not been past yet. "Oh, he'll be by as soon as it stops snowing." I pointed out that it stopped snowing an hour ago. "Well, I bet he'll be by right away". And sure enough, I was just finishing up a path to the garbage can (drifted VERY DEEP in snow) when the tractor showed up. So I waited for him to plow, and then cleared off the wall of snow he so nicely shoved behind the car.

Now the sun is shining, the snow is glistening white - it is just beautiful, if not exactly what one expects for Easter.